


soared among the stars

by Bates



Series: Otp fic-a-month challenge 2015 [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Implied Gabriel/Sam Winchester, M/M, almost a character study, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 16:05:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4106886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bates/pseuds/Bates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel's evolution from angel to something more human than he'd expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	soared among the stars

"I have lived for millennia

soared among the stars up high

delved into oceans deep

 

for all the wonders seen

the worlds explored

the lives touched

my life never began

until we collided

 

 _you gave me life_ ”

[— without you i would be mere dust | c.f](http://casfallen.tumblr.com/post/103711457588/i-have-lived-for-millennia-soared-among-the-stars)

 

Gabriel watched humanity from early on, saw the way the world was created and beings that would later, with the help of evolution evolve into the homo sapiens lived. He was there when his Father and creator gave up on his creation and, as his favorited humans said it, _let them fuck it up._ His father bailed on them; the rock the angels had to lean on gone.

                Gabriel was there when his brother fell. When his brother got persuaded by Beelzebub into leading the rebellion against humanity and the claim they had on the earth. The pedestal they stood on in the eyes of his Father and the importance they held. He was merely the messenger to tell the angels of the coming of the human race. Faith didn’t lay in his hands. Gabriel wasn't the one to decide what happened and yet, he felt like he was to blame. _  
_

                He witnessed the fall of the Morningstar and the effect it had on both angels and humans. Even in his fall, his brother had this grace to him. He still had that grace as his once bright white wings turned an ashy dark grey. The fall didn’t burn them off but made them frail and charred. The pain he felt then, in the loss of his brother and his downfall, was the first time he would ever feel the unfamiliar sensation. There was pain and yet, he witnessed it all in a silence that felt unknown and foreign, as if he wasn’t included in any of it.

                For the first time, his job as the messenger had brought with it a sense of loss and guilt. While before that time, being the messenger of God had carried a certain feeling of pride and importance, it now no longer held that. He had brought the news that meant his brother’s eventual downfall. He had brought this faith upon Lucifer - had caused it all. While Gabriel was the messenger and he hated himself for it, he still fulfilled his task, informing the Virgin Mary know that she was with child.

                “Mary, don't be afraid! God is pleased with you, and you will have a son. His name will be Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of God Most High. The Lord God will make him king, as his ancestor David was. He will rule the people of Israel forever, and his kingdom will never end." He remembered the birth of Jesus and his eventual death. Not the first time that he gazed upon the earth and felt like humanity had failed it.

                Humanity hung a man on the cross that shouldn’t have been convicted in the first place. They killed a man and let the murderer go. Humanity voted to let Barabbas go, to hang Jesus on the cross and bring him a painful and slow death. The people of Jerusalem had blood on their hands; blood of the innocent man that was meant to bring peace to his people. It was the first time that Gabriel doubted his Father and His creation.

 

Gabriel wasn’t there when Sam Winchester was born, he’d been called to an urgent matter elsewhere and missed it. What alerted him to it was the deafening silence. Angels were silent; for once their communication reduced to nothing but a slight static as yet another set of descendants of Cain and Abel were born and doomed to destroy each other – to tear each other to pieces over time.

                He followed them, tried to keep them safe from harm from a distance. Gabriel was merely the messenger, there was little in his power to do. He could do great things, could blast these guys into a happier place, a happier universe, but it wasn’t in the job description. He couldn’t do anything. Didn't dare to rebel and mingle.

                The night Mary Winchester burned on the ceiling, Gabriel kept the brothers safe; kept them from inhaling the smoke or feeling the heat.  Gabriel did what he had to do. He fell in his own way, copying what his brother had done years before him. He defied orders. He didn’t fall the literal way, his grace still intact and his wings sill present in their natural state. Gabriel didn’t call on his powers, didn’t use them for such a long time that after a while, having them felt unnatural.

                He surveyed as the Winchester brothers tore each other apart as his brothers Michael and Lucifer had done before them, as Cain and Abel did. While Lucifer and Michael and Cain and Abel fought with strength and bravery, the Winchester brothers killed each other in entirely different ways; they gave up on each other. Tore and scratched at their mental bound; hacked and sawed until the line connecting them became so frail that the slightest little tug could tear it apart. Yet the brothers still fought for each other. Still protected the other during the push and shove of blame and guilt.

 

Gabriel couldn’t help but reach out and brush his Grace over the youngest Winchester’s sadness and loneliness at his girlfriend’s passing. It was the first time he’d used it in over a year, the first time that he had felt that goodness and bliss radiate with purpose. Gabriel, he couldn’t help but ache for revenge for a crime that wasn’t even committed against him. He couldn’t help but seeing that young boy on the rug years ago, colouring pencils  – the cheap kind – in his hands and a drugstore colouring book in front of him while he drew in the picture of a cat with a smile on his lips; couldn’t help but remember the other boy, barely seven years old – at the microwave with a pack of microwaveable pasta. The meal had to fill both them and the empty cracks in their hearts where their father’s love and presence was supposed to be.

                Gabriel couldn't help but wish that John Winchester had been a more stable character, that he had had help in raising his kids and working through the grieve. That he had had someone to tell him that it was okay. That he could be sad and cry; that revenge wasn't everything. All John needed at that point was counceling from somebody that cared. But there was no one there for him. _  
_

                He couldn’t help seeing that reflected in the boy – almost a man – standing in the bathroom now; face dripping with water and red rimmed eyes. Bottom lip drawn between his teeth to stop from crying, to stop more tears from flowing down, to stop his strength from escaping even more. Dean couldn't see. Dean couldn't know that he was breaking under the surface.

                “I will hurt the bastard that did that to you Jess.” He told his reflection, voice half wavering. “I will make him pay.” In his eyes the loss and sadness of a man that had lived a century and seen it all. It shouldn’t be in a twenty-one year old’s eyes. “I was poison to you.” The waves of self-hatred and melancholy rolling of him hit Gabriel by surprise. They were concentrated and if this was outside of the man’s head, how would it be inside? “I am poison.”

 

* * *

As the years passed, the brother’s scratched at their connection more and more, until all they had left were a few loose threads that were close to snapping. Gabriel saw it happen like in a nightmare, saw how Dean went to Hell and the first seal to free his brother from his penalty was broken. He watched as one of his brothers dragged Dean out, leaving a brand in his arm attesting to the struggle it had been. A mark that now spoke if the connection between the Hunter and his angel; between a protected and his guardian angel.

                For a second time did he witness a brother rebel and being punished for it. Yet this time, he saw Castiel – the angel with a fierce determination to be different, a little less angel, a little more human – not only fall from Grace but also fall in love. Fall in love both with humanity and a certain part of humanity; a certain human with freckles on his body and green eyes – a hunter with battle marks and emotional luggage.

                He saw how his brother fell in love and lost part of him in the process. Castiel, his brother, he was slowly failing, slowly losing all that he had left. Falling in a way similar to the way that he had slowly given up on being an angel all those years ago. Gabriel recognized it in the way that Cas looked for Dean in places, perking up, wanting to say something to him and finding nothing but air around him.

                He saw how his brother was punished for allowing emotion to affect him. Saw how he was put on heavens leash and reprogrammed. How he turned cold and stoic all over again. 

 

Time passed and things got worse. They couldn’t stop the seals from breaking; couldn’t stop Lucifer – the Morningstar – from rising again. They couldn’t stop him from meeting earth with his hatred and loathing. Lucifer walked in a vessel that was breaking down, not strong enough for the former angel. And the way Lucifer passed his mark on the earth, it was brutal. There were centuries of pent up rage; years of anger and betrayal ready to be released upon the earth and those who had caused his fall in the first place.

                Gabriel knew what he needed, or more pressing _who_ he needed; who would be able to contain him without breaking down – without each molecule of his body being broken down. He woudn’t allow that to happen, _couldn’t_ allow it to happen and let his brother start the rebellion and fight with Michael all over again. But he couldn’t do anything, could come out of hiding.

                And then, he was there. Trying to help without even realizing that he had made the choice. He faced his brother head on, lost his life in the process. Gabriel gave his life for the Winchesters – and especially the Winchester with long hair and a smile that could make a bad day bright – in a fight against his brother. A fight that was worth it in the end.

 

First, there was darkness. Life slowly finding its way back to him. Like the breath being blown into a clay puppet. Gabriel came to to colours and sound, a weariness in his bones he couldn't shake off. His Father had granted him a second chance, shown him that he was of importance to the story of the two boys.

                He was an angel no more; his grace was lost, he was no more than an average human. It was a price he hated paying but was worth it in the end.

                And yet, he came to to the knowledge that he was too late; Sam had allowed Lucifer in and was in the Cage. Sam was gone. He had made the final and most selfless sacrifice known to the man and given his life up in order to save the world. The ungrateful, undeserving world.

 

\-------------

 

Life as a human didn’t bode well for Gabriel. He tried, he really did, fitting in just didn’t work out as well as he’d hoped. He couldn’t get used to it. Yet, time passed and he behaved as a human. He ate, drank, did the laundry, discovered beer and got drunk the first time.

                He had expected to find humanity a little bit more appealing. To perhaps like it a little more. He’d expected everything to be just, _better?_ He paddled on, ignoring how he had lost all sense of hope.

 

That was until shit went down and the angels fell. Until his father called on him again, granting him his wings and grace, making him full on angel again. He saw Sam Winchester battle against passing; he saw Sam slowly giving up, slowly wanting to die and slip out of the coma to go to the 

                He watched as his brother fell and lost everything; even his hunter pushing him to the side. He saw Gadreel, the one to let the serpent into the garden, getting his chance at redemption. He saw how is brothers fought and lost.

 

* * *

In the end, he couldn’t keep away from the other man’s life.  Sam Winchester had lost contact with his brother the final time; the connection barely there. Gabriel wondered how the brothers had managed this long without killing each other, without breaking their bond completely.

                Their actions in the past few years had almost broken it so many times and even though Dean was gone now, gone awry and if on the dark path, Sam hoped. Didn't give up on his brother. Honestly, Gabriel wondered how they always good back to point A, to loving each other. No matter how much the other betrayed them, they Winchesters couldn't live without each other. It was almost toxic, the way their lives revolved around each other. The Winchester's would rather die for each other than see a day in which the other was dead.

                Quite frankly, it worried Gabriel. He knew the effect the Mark of Cain could have, knew that it would tear Dean apart until all that remained was the broken, twisted soul. Dean would be no more but the soul of a man that was once his brother; no more than a shattered picture frame without a picture.  Would Sam still love his brother and forgive him while pressing the First Blade to his throat? Would Sam still forgive him if this time, the mark decided on its victim and Dean would kill everyone he loved? Sam and Castiel? Charlie?

 

* * *

 

 

It was in that worrying that Gabriel realised for the first time that his feelings for the man could perhaps stay further than just caring. It took him by surprise. Even after his downfall, he hadn’t experienced this affection. Not in a million years had he imagined that he would one day look into the face of a person and feel love mirrored in his heart.

                He watched Sam study the papers, look for a cure and felt his heart break. The look on his face: the desperation and sadness, it was almost to much for him.

                But he couldn't. Couldn't help, couldn't do anything. All Gabriel could and would do was watch from afar as Sam broke, Cas did as well and Dean lost his grip.

 

He wouldn’t stick around, not for this. Not for pain and heartbreak. It was with a heavy heart that he turned his back on the Winchesters, love and in the end of it all; earth.


End file.
